eyes of the gazer. He gave a little pleased nod, as of approval to the river, and then he came back again to the village green, meeting the bands of children just dismissed, who had poured out of the school doors the minute before. He smiled upon them too, and their noise and their games, with little involuntary shrugs of his shoulders and uplifting of his eyebrows as he had to step out of their way: for they did not make room for him as they ought to have done, being rough and healthy village children, invaded by the spirit of the nineteenth century, and having passed beyond the age of curtseys and bows to the gentry. Some of the girls, indeed, stood aside with a little curiosity and pointed him out to each other, with whispers and giggles, which were less agreeable than the uproarious indifference of the rest. When he had got through the crowd, and passed the doors of the empty school, Leo suddenly stopped short at the sight of a face he knew. ‘What!’ he said, ‘you here?’ with very little pleasure in his tone. ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Brown, with a slight sweep of a curtsey, ‘I am here. You do not say you are glad to see me, Leo.’ ‘You know I am not glad to see you, and I do not pretend it. What are you doing here?’ Mrs. Brown smiled. She was a handsome woman, and looked, as all the village allowed, ‘superior’ to a village schoolmistress. She was tall and dark, not like Leo, but there was a resemblance in her face to that of his mother which filled him with an angry impatience whenever this woman crossed his path. She smiled, and again made a scarcely perceptible obeisance as of satirical humility. ‘That is my own concern,’ she said. ‘It is not mine, certainly: and I have no desire to know: but there is one thing I have to say,’ he said sternly. ‘Don’t come to the Hall--I won’t have you there. If I do you injustice I am sorry, but I don’t want you, please, in my house.’ ‘And what then about your mother’s house?’ she said. ‘Has she no house; or where are her friends to see her? It is hard if at her age she has no place of her own to receive her friends.’ ‘How do you venture to call yourself one of her friends?’ ‘Ask her,’ said Mrs. Brown, with a smile. ‘I am sorry you let your prejudice carry you so far. Ask your mother, Leo, and then forbid me the house if you think well. I am going to see Mrs. Swinford to-night.’ He turned away from her angrily with a wave of his hand, while she stood for a moment looking after him. There was a faint smile of triumph on her face, but it was not malicious or unkind. ‘Bless us all, Mrs. Brown,’ said her colleague, the master, coming up with no very amiable look, ‘so it appears you know Mr. Swinford, and all the rest of the grandees?’ ‘I don’t know anything about grandees: but I taught Leo Swinford his letters,’ said Mrs. Brown.